Chapter Fifty-One

The Innocent Bystander

Constable Trond Guro stared at the two titans currently trading blows in the town square. One was a massive beast that he could only assume was an ogre, as he’d never seen one before. Its resemblance to a grotesque mockery of a human infant repulsed him to his soul. The thing drooled like a child and waddled unsteadily on tiny feet, and yet there was no denying its ferocity or raw power. The other “thing” matched the ogre in strength and blind fury, but was much more pleasant to observe. It was a huge bear with shaggy black fur, claws as long as a man’s hand, and gnashing fangs that were not meant to cut, but rather to rend in the very literal sense of the word. To remove from place by violence. In fact, the entire bear was built to rend; even its fur looked like it carried a razor edge.

Trond had been in his office, releasing prisoners, when he’d heard the commotion. He’d been in the process of letting everyone who had not committed a capital offense go on their own recognizance so they could defend their homes and loved ones. Thankfully, there weren’t any detainees who had done more than cheat at gambling or engage in public disorderliness. He’d been sweeping out the last of the cells when he’d heard the ruckus. Without hesitation he was out the door and heading into the courtyard where it seemed whatever was happening was happening.

He arrived just as the two horrors clashed in a flurry of blood, flesh, and fur. Trond’s first thought had been to draw his blade and hit the ogre. He didn’t know why, but he sensed no danger from the grizzled bear that rampaged just a few feet away. He had every intention of joining the fray, but he found himself immobile. Try as he might he could not make a single muscle twinge in the slightest.

There was a voice that had no words and wasn’t speaking, but a voice that he could hear nonetheless. It told him not to get involved and to stay back. Raiders were on their way and would be there soon. He was needed for that. The ongoing battle between grisly titans was not his to partake in. He knew this and resented it. Trond Guro no longer felt like himself.

He hadn’t felt right for some time. He felt like an imposter. He dreamt of dying every single time he closed his eyes. It wasn’t a recurrent dream; it was an ongoing event. He died over and over, choking on his own blood and wracked with pain that could only come when every nerve was burning like a forest fire. He knew it was no dream. It had happened. Trond Guro had died; he just couldn’t remember how or when. Other times he was stabbed in the back and left to rot in a rundown area by the docks. That had happened, too.

He felt normal during the day, most of the time the memory, and that was what it was a memory, faded into the background noise of the day. At night, when he laid in his bed and the world was quiet, he could not drive those images and sensations away. He died over and over each night, flipping from one death to the other until he found himself drenched in sweat and bathed in the morning light.

Trond Guro had no fear of death. At times, he prayed for it. The constable knew that he wasn’t mad. His life had been reset and he had been made whole by some unknown entity. He had no idea why he’d been gifted or cursed in such a manner, but he wanted to find his puppeteer and get straight answers from whoever they were.

He could feel the tug on his strings quite clearly at the moment. His presence in the fight was not wanted, and he’d been told in no uncertain terms to stand down. Guro was impotent in the worst possible way. He was trapped in his body, and no matter how much he applied his formidable will he could not take it back.

He felt himself slide his weapon back into its sheath as he scanned the battlefield for innocent bystanders. This was what he would have referred to as his autopilot mode, had he been familiar with the term. Instead, he thought of himself going into a trancelike state in which he said and did things that he did not want to do or say.

The one benefit to the whole thing was that whatever was manipulating him had never made him do anything that he wouldn’t normally do. In fact, most of his deeds were completely altruistic and at the very worst, beneficial to the people of Goulcrest. He could live with that. He hadn’t even noticed it at first, but there had been times that he’d wanted to do one thing and inexplicably did another. Now, he couldn’t help but take note of it. That silent voice that wasn’t there and said nothing seemed to guide him, but he still felt trapped. Given his druthers, he would have attacked the ogre, but not being able to do that he would have looked for people who might have been injured or were in harm’s way due to the ongoing battle.

Only his hyper-awareness of the unspoken words and guidance by invisible strings let him know he was not himself. He had wondered if he wasn’t undead. Goulcrest had a history of the undead, and Trond could not tell if he had really died and was slowly transforming into some sort of revenant, but he had quickly discounted that possibility. He felt no malice towards the living, and he didn’t shun sunlight as most undead did. No, he was something else. He just didn’t know what or who he was anymore.

He let his body go into action and slowly his own thoughts felt like they were gaining ground. It seemed like he could do what he wanted so long as he stayed out from between the warring monsters. The constable took a deep breath and went about his appointed duties of protecting the people of the town all the while praying to the new blood god that had mysteriously helped the town by arming the citizenry, that he would be free of his curse someday. In the background, there was a terrible roar and an anguished scream of pain, and Trond saw blood falling from the sky like rain. A quick glance over his shoulder told him that the fight was only getting started as something strange was happening to the bear.